Favorite Paysetter Memories

Since I have been cleaning out files and going through all of my things at Payson, I have been remembering some of the things that the Paysetters did while I was coaching at Payson. These are a few of the pictures that I have come across. I'm sure there will be more in another post!

First, one year for the Freedom Festival parade on July 4th in Provo, the Paysetters, along with the Juab drill team,were invited to represent the armed forces in the parade "pre-show". It was a great honor. It was televised on KSL. Here are a few pictures from the event:

Some of the girls used these red, white, & blue wings.

Some of the Paysetters, dancing in Navy uniforms.

Some of the Paysetters, performing in Air Force uniforms.

Another great memory, is the green army man routine. This idea came when I was in Disneyland on tour with the drill team and dance company. Nichole, Kreg, and I were going up the escalator to go on Space Mountain. We looked down and there was a Toy Story show going on. There were these men dressed as the green army men toys--life size and their costumes were so cool--they looked plastic and they were totally green! Nichole looked at me and said,"You should do that for drill next year." So, we all met the next day and watched the Toy Story show--took some pictures of the costumes, and that became my quest for that summer. To get costumes like the ones I saw at Disneyland!

This is my nephew, Jackson, with some of the Paysetters at State Drill.

I think he had just woke up from a nap. But, Amy and Jackson came to both Region and State. Nichole told me that she was sitting near them and she heard Jackson trying to yell down to me while the Paysetters were getting ready to perform. Everyone loved this routine! It was a crowd favorite.The first time we performed the routine at a competition, we walked into the practice gym and it went quiet and everyone looked at the girls, like who is that team? It was like we were movie stars! The girls on the team commented to me that is was so fun to perform and see all of the video cameras go up and turn on when they performed this routine. We were known all throughout the drill team world. We placed in the top three at every competition with the routine that year. It was so much fun! Years later, I was at a dance workshop and the teacher that was teaching the routine had all of us introduce ourselves and when I said my name and that I was the drill team coach at Payson, she said, "You're the school that did the green army men routine--that was so cool!" I'll never forget that.

Here we all are in the costumes--minus the hats and make-up.

Another favorite novelty routine and memory, was our flapper/gangster routine. It always won trophies also. Best time would have to be at the Rocky Mountain Drill Team Competition, we won 1st place! The girls were so thrilled--jumping up and down, so excited. But, that meant we had to stay and perform in the finals that night--a long day had just got even longer, but we didn't care--we were there with all of the "elite". All teams that placed first got to perform that night as part of the Miss Drill pageant. It was great--too bad our bubble was popped the next week, when the same routine was disqualified because of an illegal, dangerous move. OOH, we held a girl while standing on top of our stage platform. That meant it was a stunt on top of a prop--illegal. Three girls were holding a girl across their arms in the end pose of the routine, no one had spotted it until Region, not even me.

Here are the Paysetters in the Flapper/gangster costumes:

Traveling on the tours would have to be another great memory of coaching at Payson. Here I am in California with Nichole and Kreg. Nichole was over the dance company and we always toured together. We had a lot of fun!

Here we are at Catalina Island:Our combined groups on our first trip to Florida:

This is the first group I took to California. It was just the drill team that year--the dance teacher didn't want to go with us, so I was bound and determined to take the drill team on a trip. Even if I had to do it all by myself! Probably one of the best trips had to be the New York City Nationals trip. The board denied it the first time, but approved it the next year. Here we are with all of the trophies we won: Of course, another great memory would be the times that we won Region! The Paysetters won Region three times while I was coaching. The first time, we had won, but because of a tabulation error, they didn't give us the trophy until February. Here the team is with the trophy. It was the last home basketball game, so just the seniors were performing. Payson was playing American Fork. Their drill team had been announced as the Region champs at Region--which was incorrect--they were actually third! So, their drill team presented the Region trophy to the team at halftime of the basketball game. It was great, but we didn't get that moment at the competition.

PHS Paysetters - Region Champs - 2004-05

In 2007-08, the Paysetters won region again, this time we got our moment and it was even at our school! It was the best--the team had worked really hard. We even won the overall 1st place spot for state. The southern region that only has two 4A schools, had to compete with our region. We competed separately, but then to determine the seeding for state, we had to compete with each other. Payson won first overall! We beat Dixie and Snow Canyon! That just added to our excitement!

PHS Paysetters - Region Champs 2007-08

This year, 2008-09, we won Region again! We placed first in all categories. It was another great year. No one expected Payson to do well because we were small--we had lost girls to Salem and we didn't quite have the talent we had had before. But the team was determined and so was I--I was not going to let the team down. I did all that I could to help prepare the team. We did it--they did it!

PHS Paysetters - Region Champs-2008-09

There are many more great times/memories at Payson. I will post some more later.

Events from the Past Few Weeks

There has been a lot going on the past few weeks and so I have not been blogging. Finally I had some free time and decided to try and catch up on what we have been doing.

First-Mother's Day--Scott is so sweet and always gets me a Mother's Day gift--even if I don't feel like I am a real mother. Yes, I am a step-mother, but I guess because I haven't given birth to a child, I don't really feel like a "mother". But, I did get a present or two!

Scott gave me a new skirt and shirt. I like them a lot!

Then on May 14 & 15, Payson High Dance Company had their annual Spring Dance Concert. The Paysetters performed two numbers in the concert. Here they are in their hip hop costumes. The routine was to the songs Poker Face and Just Dance by Lady Ga Ga. It was a fun, upbeat dance! They wore some cool sunglasses for the performance. It was really fun!

Their other piece was choreographed by Marci Hite, my assistant drill coach, and it was to the song, "Supermassive" from the Twilight soundtrack. It was a cool, mysterious dance. The girls wore their hair down, which is unusual for drill. They also wore some dark eyeshadow and silver glitter around their eyes. It looked very cool on stage. Here they are in the costumes:

Then, on Saturday, May 16th, we went up to Taylorsville and watched Amanda play in her softball game. Here she is warming up to bat:

Now she is up to bat:

Made it to first.

After the game, with her dad:

This is me, showing the bouquet of flowers that my Principal at Payson gave me at the dance concert. He presented flowers to both me and the dance company teacher, Megan King. We are both leaving Payson High. I'm going to Maple Mountain High and Megan is moving near Las Vegas while her husband goes to medical school. The Paysetters also gave me a cute plaque with some pictures on it from the year. I felt very honored and a little bit sad, of course.

Then, on Monday, May 18th, it was the open house for the new Maple Mountain High School that I will be teaching at this next year. I have already began practicing with the drill team.

They performed at the open house. Here they are--a wide shot so you can see the logo on the gym floor:
A closer shot:

Then, of course, a crazy shot--don't you like my "crazy" pose!

It has been kinda crazy trying to wrap things up at Payson and then get things started at Maple Mountain. One day, the Thursday before the Monday performance, I was practicing for the open house with my Maple Mountain team, we tried on their new tops that they would be wearing for the performace, and they looked terrible! I had to call the seamstress and ask her to fix them. She did, so the ones you see in the picture are the "make-do" tops. (I'm having her fix them again so they will look the way we thought they would.) Anyway, I leave the Maple Mountain practice, at 6:30 p.m., was suppost to be done at 6 p.m., because I have to be back over to Payson for the dance concert which started at 7 p.m. This is how it has been--crazy!

I also have days when I feel sad about leaving Payson and then days when I am excited for the change and the new school. It has been hard packing everything up. I can't believe some of the things I still had! I had all of my handouts, etc. from when I taught keyboarding--on electric typewriters! I don't think I will be teaching that again. I also had all kinds of exercises for Word Perfect and older versions of Word. Needless to say, I filled up many paper recycling bins at my school that day!

Well, now there are only four more days of school at Payson. I'm looking forward to only concentrating on one school, one drill team, etc. Actually, I'm looking the most forward to the holiday on Monday--and Scott gets that day off too!

Spring Break 2009

Well, it has been a while since I have updated our blog. So here goes.

The week after Easter weekend was Spring Break for my district. I had Wednesday - Friday off. Of course, it didn't seem like Spring Break because it snowed quite heavily on Wednesday. In fact, it was so heavy that they had to remove one of the trees from the front of our condo because it had been "up-rooted".

We decided not to go anywhere on a trip since we had just been to Florida with my drill team. We also had tickets to Wicked. Here we are in front of the Capitol Theater:

It was so good. Even if it was the third time we had seen it! We first saw it in New York. We had front row seats because we won tickets from the ticket lottery. Well, we didn't win, but our new found friends that we met while waiting for the ticket drawing said they would sell us the tickets to Wicked if they won if we would put our names into another drawing for a show at a theater next door and sell those tickets to them if we won. They lived in Brooklyn and had seen the show twice already. Well, we did it, and the second to last name that was called was our friend. I remember looking at Scott and saying, "We are going to Wicked!" And our tickets were only $25 a piece--the souvenir shirt I bought cost more than my ticket! The show was so awesome.

The second time was in California with my drill team. It was good-a different view this time, and a little bit easier to see. This time we were in the balcony on a different side and it was still so cool! I'm so glad I was able to see it again.

Saturday afternoon, we went to my nephew Dallin's birthday party. Here is my sister Emilee helping Dallin open presents.
Dallin was only interested in the new train he had opened. Here is Grandma helping him get it opened so he can play with it.

Dallin playing with the new train.

Dallin and his sister Madeline with his "WALL-E" cake:

Scott and I did actually have a small get away to the Zermatt Resort in Midway, Utah. We went up there Friday night after going to Wicked. Here is the main entrance to the hotel:

Scott trying to climb the mountain pictured on the side of the building:

Outside by the carousel:

A closer shot. No we didn't ride it--just went outside to check it out and the bell-boy offered to take a picture or two for us!

We had a great time--just relaxing and sleeping in. We also had some good food while up there. The restaurant there had an Italian buffet on Saturday night that was really good. We were even there with some local celebrities! David Osmond was there and his father, Alan Osmond was also there with their wives. They were at a table with the owner of Zermatt. One of the servers told us that David Osmond had just done a benefit concert somewhere in the area.

Anyway, it was a great Spring Break!